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What do you all think of Brandon wanting to retcon Slatrification? Did you like/dislike Slatrification as an element of Sand Mastery? Do you agree that Slatrification needed to go from a narrative perspective? Personally, I think that Slatrification retcon was kinda unnecessary. I've seen people complain that Slatrification was game-breaking for Sand Mastery, which I completely disagree with: A) you need White Sand in the first place, away from the Dayside desert, a Sand Master will have to carry around White Sand in a gourd like a discount Gaara B ) the sand becomes inert after use and takes a while to recharge, with modern Investiture devices and/or just more abundant ambient Investiture this problem might be solved but that's another weakness and an opening C) Slatrification would've converted sand to water. If the Sand Master isn't in Dayside's Kerztian desert that just reduces the resources the Sand Master has at his disposal. One does not get instantly rehydrated by drinking water and trying to do that might in fact kill you D) Sand Mastery isn't very versatile tool compared to other Invested Arts users like Surgebinders or Mistborn, and seems to be on the higher end of required training. Every level of power breakthrough is physiologically expensive and requires even more training to integrate into combat I think there's sufficient cost to the magic without Slatrification It would've been really amazing to see a skilled Sand Master trying to balance out Sand Mastery's rotating handicaps of sand, water & Investiture in the future. Narratively, all it needed to be was a high enough level skill so as to be inaccessible to the protagonists, which it already was. Slatrification also seems thematically very appropriate for the setting. Having the power to convert sand into water in the desert, as well as using an opponent's Investiture as fuel (White Sand recharges from kinetic Investiture), when Taldain gets into space-faring era. Update: the retcon is now official. The edited version will be available in the omnibus.

Is the mechanism by which Slatrification occurs like soulcasting, but only sand to water, do we think?

OK, this power is a bit weird. Apparently sand mastery works through lichen or something in the sand that feeds on sunlight (recharging it between uses) and water from the Sand Master (at the time of Sand Mastery being used). This lets the Sand Master manipulate the white sand physically. So far this seems like a very biological, ecological, "cycle of nature" kind of magic system. But then there's Slatrification. Really powerful sand masters can turn white sand into water. How does that work? Does the lichen die upon transformation? I suppose that in itself wouldn't be problematic, since as a living thing presumably it can multiply and spread back into areas it's been killed out of. But... does the water ever turn back to sand? If not, will the Dayside eventually run out of white sand, or sink into the ocean as its land is slowly transformed into water?